Statecraft as Psychiatry

Last summer, I sat at the corner of a very long banquet table in the presidential palace in Kabul and ate lunch with Hamid Karzai. He was seated in the middle of one side, flanked by assorted ministers and aides; directly across from him was Richard Holbrooke, flanked by assorted diplomats and aides. My notes show that the small talk didn’t last long.

HOLBROOKE: Wherever our troops have driven out the Taliban in Helmand over the last few weeks, there has been no effort to bring in administrative structures of your government.

KARZAI: Has this been done in coördination with our government?

HOLBROOKE: This is a huge issue for you. I urge you to sit down with NATO and the Embassy to work on a quick-reaction administrative effort to bring to the districts health, schools, and, above all, justice.

Silence from Karzai.

The Afghan President had a way of speaking as if for effect—the President is shocked! the President is resolved!—like an inexperienced actor trying out for Richard II. Holbrooke, all business, tried to wade through the theatrics and keep the discussion focussed on what diplomats call the Afghan government’s “challenges.” It did not seem like what diplomats call a productive exchange. (After lunch, I was told by one of Holbrooke’s aides that the banquet room was the scene of the murder of a previous Afghan head of state during a palace coup, a detail that somehow seemed relevant to the situation of Hamid Karzai.)

A few weeks later, on August 20th, Karzai claimed reëlection amid evidence of massive fraud. He and Holbrooke had an even less productive exchange, and relations between the two governments turned sour. Over the following months, the U.S. demanded that Karzai clean up corruption, fire crooked officials, show that he was a reliable partner. After Karzai tried to put the election complaints commission under his total control, President Obama visited Kabul and apparently delivered some stern advice. Karzai responded by giving a series of rambling, paranoid-sounding, televised speeches, in which he blamed all his troubles on Western governments and news organizations (singling out the Times), and threatened to join the Taliban if it didn’t stop.

The Americans began to rethink their approach.

And now Karzai is in Washington for a weeklong visit. He will be feted and toasted by the highest officials in the land, enjoying what reporters call a “charm offensive.” Obama will give Karzai a full day of his time, and Vice-President Biden (who, two years ago, walked out of a different Kabul lunch in disgust with the Afghan President) will host the kind of private dinner visiting heads of state crave. No more tense lunchtime exchanges, no more private blowups, no more unhinged speeches. Instead there will be a series of productive meetings between old friends. And we will hear that America has a reliable partner in Kabul.

By August, Karzai will be blaming Washington and the Times for all his troubles, and American envoys will be sent to deliver tough messages.

Wars that hinge on an unstable, highly personalized relationship seldom come to a satisfying end. This relationship in particular has come to resemble that of an exhausted mental health professional and a beleaguered patient who suffers from chronic delusions. The shrink doesn’t know whether to work with the delusions or puncture them, and he keeps switching between one approach and the other because neither shows any sign of succeeding. For the moment, the Obama Administration has decided to indulge Karzai by bringing out the expensive china, in the slender hope that he can be coaxed into changing his behavior. Unfortunately, this was roughly the approach of the Bush Administration for seven years, and it helped lead to the stunning resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Last summer, Holbrooke described the problem this way: “It’s a constant tension in relationships like this one between what the Americans want and what the local officials want. And we’re not always right about our goals—what we want—and the government we’re supporting is not always right.” Another American official, Ambassador Tim Carney, put it less delicately: “We get into relationships that give the leaders of countries the strength of their weakness.” In other words, the weak, corrupt, erratic rulers of countries where the U.S. is at war can simply dare the Americans to end their support. “We can collapse the whole thing, but that’s all we can do,” Carney said. “What other leverage do we have?” In other words, we’re stuck with Karzai.